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THE EVOLUTION OF CAPITALISM
SYSTEM OF ECONOMICAL CONTRADICTIONS OR, THE PHILOSOPHY OF MISERY.BYP. J. PROUDHON
Destruam et aedificabo. Deuteronomy: c. 32.
VOLUME FIRST.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I.OF THE ECONOMIC SCIENCE% 1. Opposition between FACT and RIGHT in Social Economy% 2. Inadequacy of Theories and Criticisms
CHAPTER II.OF VALUE% 1. Opposition of Value in USE and Value in EXCHANGE% 2. Constitution of Value; Definition of Wealth% 3. Application of the Law of Proportionality of Values
CHAPTER III.ECONOMIC EVOLUTIONS.—FIRST PERIOD.—THE DIVISION OF LABOR% 1. Antagonistic Effects of the Principle of Division% 2. Impotence of Palliatives.—MM. Blanqui, Chevalier, Dunoyer, Rossi, and Passy
CHAPTER IV.SECOND PERIOD.—MACHINERY% 1. Of the Function of Machinery in its Relations to Liberty% 2. Machinery's Contradiction.—Origin of Capital and Wages% 3. Of Preservatives against the Disastrous Influence of Machinery
CHAPTER V.THIRD PERIOD.—COMPETITION% 1. Necessity of Competition% 2. Subversive Effects of Competition, and the Destruction of Liberty thereby% 3. Remedies against Competition
CHAPTER VI.FOURTH PERIOD.—MONOPOLY% 1. Necessity of Monopoly% 2. The Disasters in Labor and the Perversion of Ideas caused by Monopoly
CHAPTER VII.FIFTH PERIOD.—POLICE, OR TAXATION% 1. Synthetic Idea of the Tax. Point of Departure and Development of this Idea% 2. Antinomy of the Tax% 3. Disastrous and Inevitable Consequences of the Tax. (Provisions, Sumptuary Laws, Rural and Industrial Police, Patents,Trade-Marks, etc.)
CHAPTER VIII.OF THE RESPONSIBILITY OF MAN AND OF GOD, UNDER THE LAW OFCONTRADICTION, OR A SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM OF PROVIDENCE% 1. The Culpability of Man.—Exposition of the Myth of the Fall% 2. Exposition of the Myth of Providence.—Retrogression of God
INTRODUCTION.
Before entering upon the subject-matter of these new memoirs, Imust explain an hypothesis which will undoubtedly seem strange,but in the absence of which it is impossible for me to proceedintelligibly: I mean the hypothesis of a God.
To suppose God, it will be said, is to deny him. Why do you notaffirm him?
Is it my fault if belief in Divinity has become a suspectedopinion; if the bare suspicion of a Supreme Being is alreadynoted as evidence of a weak mind; and if, of all philosophicalUtopias, this is the only one which the world no longertolerates? Is it my fault if hypocrisy and imbecility everywherehide behind this holy formula?
Let a public teacher suppose the existence, in the universe, ofan unknown force governing suns and atoms, and keeping the wholemachine in motion. With him this supposition, wholly gratuitous,is perfectly natural; it is received, encouraged: witnessattraction—an hypothesis which will never be verified, andwhich, nevertheless, is the glory of its originator. But when,to explain the course of human events, I suppose, with allimaginable caution, the intervention of a God, I am sure to shockscientific gravity and offend critical ears: to so wonderful anextent has our piety discredited Providence, so many trickshave been played by means of this do